Description

Vintage Ruby Flash Glass Goblet Matching Pair, Diamond Point—Collectable This pair of vintage ruby flash glass goblets is in excellent condition; I can’t find any flaws. The color is uniform, as seen. The color was added during the manufacturing process to the exterior of clear glass, a process which requires gold to produce the red color. Because these goblets aren’t dated, I can only guess at the date of manufacture. Books on glassware from the several glass companies which made Ruby red flash glass might be helpful. Ruby Flash Glass was manufactured by a variety of American Glass companies as early as 1892, that I have been able to document, and a variety of pieces in different styles continued to be made up until about the 1950’s—but some continued to be made into the 1960’s. The early glass pieces were bought, generally one or two at a time, as souvenirs, while traveling; pieces can be found engraved with the names of people, and often of even small towns. It was also popular as World Fair memorabilia, the earliest I’ve seen being from the 1892 World’s Exposition in Chicago. The period of greatest popularity appears, based on the dated pieces I’ve seen, to have been during the turn of the 20th Century, through the 1930’s—so that it may sometimes be considered “depression glass,” although pieces with names and places are more likely to be referred to as souvenir glass. While pieces with dates are generally accurate, occasionally that can be deceiving! Pieces engraved with “Gettysburg 1863” obviously represent souvenirs bought at a later date, to commemorate the battle at Gettysburg in 1863–ruby flash glass wasn’t manufactured that early. The glass companies, for the most part, were not even founded until much later.